


Angles of Reflection

by flyby



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn
Genre: Community: khrfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-06
Updated: 2010-10-06
Packaged: 2017-10-12 11:27:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyby/pseuds/flyby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five windows. <i>He looks happy, but he's an idiot who always looks happy; you're pretty sure it doesn't mean anything.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Angles of Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> for khrfest, from the prompt _Yamamoto/Gokudera - secret; meet me at my window_

**Angles of Reflection  
(five windows)**

 _xiv._  
He looks happy, but he's an idiot who always looks happy; you're pretty sure it doesn't mean anything. He's sitting up in the bed, wearing the dumbest baseball-printed pyjamas you think you've ever seen, talking and laughing with the Tenth. You scowl, hunching down into your coat against the wind that stings your cheeks, and pretend to be concentrating on your cigarette instead of the harsh light of the hospital room. The Tenth looks happy, too, that shining hopeful utterly sincere happiness that bleeds from every pore of him. It always makes you ache, a little, because you're not stupid enough to think that this life is anything he's dreamed of.

Yamamoto, the idiot, chooses that moment to glance out of the window, meeting your eyes with such a cheerfully inane grin that you hunch down on the bench, inhaling smoke until your lungs ache and your head swims. You haven't set foot in that room since the first time, after he'd finally woken up, though the Tenth comes by often enough that you're spending an increasing number of evenings on this damn bench. You tell yourself that duty comes first; that the cold and the rain don't matter; that you've failed them once, trusted where you shouldn't have, and it'll never happen again. The baseball idiot's going to be fine, and you hate hospitals anyway.

On the other side of the glass Yamamoto glances out at you again, a half-smile curling his mouth, then turns back to the Tenth to say something. You shift in your seat, uncomfortable and impotently angry, because you don't understand why he smiles, how he can just take this.

The Tenth nods at his words, and turns to wave out at you; you straighten instinctively, but it doesn't appear to be a summons. He exchanges a few more words with Yamamoto and gets up to leave, and the baseball idiot smiles after him for a long moment. You get up to go, thinking to leave it at that, but he turns back to you and somehow you can't make yourself move. His face is calm and thoughtful, but you'd swear you can see the smile, caught in the corners of his eyes and mouth. It makes the back of your neck prickle, and when you shiver it has nothing to do with the chill of the wind.

* * *

 _xiv (b)._  
Summer is long and hot and boring. The Tenth is away with his family (his other family, and you'd have argued more if you hadn't known that Reborn-san and your sister and probably most of CEDEF are with them) and you're stuck babysitting the rest of the Guardians, which mostly means keeping an eye on the baseball freak. He's taking so many make-up classes over the break that you're a little worried his head's going to explode from all the unfamiliar studying, if he doesn't land himself back in the hospital first with all the training he's doing. You're getting really tired of hanging around the baseball field and the batting cages; it's not as if you even like the stupid game.

You shift a couple of inches to the right, following the shadow of the chimney overhead and wishing futilely for a cigarette. After the run-in you had with Hibari the first time you came up here, you're not going to be dumb enough to invite his attention again. It's not so much that you're afraid of him as that he's a damn psychopath, albeit an occasionally useful one, and you like your bones in one piece. Anyway, it's too fucking hot for a fight; even sitting up here in the shade your clothes are starting to stick to you unpleasantly, and the air is like breathing soup.

On the other side of the gap between the buildings, Yamamoto shifts in his chair, propping his head up on his hand. You're pretty sure he knows you're there, because every so often he'll glance out of the window as though he's checking up on you, but right now he's spinning a pencil in his fingers, staring at whatever the hell the teacher's doing. You can't really tell if he's paying attention or just pretending, but it's been a while since he's scribbled anything in his book. You've got a book of your own, the latest set of _True Paranormal_ abductees' accounts that just came out this week, but your concentration is shot to hell; you've read the same paragraph over five or six times because your eyes keep sliding from the words back to the window of the classroom.

Yamamoto is chewing the end of his pencil now, his eyes on his textbook. You have to admire the teacher's patience; if it were you you think you'd probably have beaten the idiot over the head with the book by now. He's infuriating; you can never tell if he's actually a moron or just playing dumb, the way he acts so damn easygoing all the time. You've seen him angry, you've seen him serious, and sometimes that smile drives you up the wall.

The class seems to be winding up; Yamamoto yawns, stretching his arms over his head and glancing out of the window. His eyes meet yours and you flinch, horrified by the heat that rises to your face as he grins. You can't quite look away, though, as your hands scrabble to gather up your book and abandoned jacket and he starts making elaborate, pantomime gestures across the gap of glass and vertiginous air between you. You're pretty sure he's trying to tell you he'll meet you at the gate; you shrug one shoulder dismissively, turning your back as you head for the stairs. It's not a denial, though; you tell yourself that you're going that way anyway. And you're supposed to be keeping an eye on the idiot, after all.

* * *

 _xvi._  
You have a love-hate relationship with the piano. It wasn't something you missed, when you left your father's house, and these days you play for yourself alone, and sometimes for the smiling ghost you can barely remember. As far as you know, not even the Tenth is aware that you still play, which suits you just fine. So it's very much a shock to the system when you reach the final bars of the Fifth Piano Concerto (not that it's the same without the orchestra, and not that you have a thing for Beethoven at all) and hear the sound of polite applause from the window behind you. You whirl around so fast that you almost upset the piano stool, your hands groping for a weapon, any weapon.

"I didn't know you still played the piano." Yamamoto, of all fucking people, is sitting on the sill of your open window, smiling that damn smile at you.

"The hell?" you manage eventually, after you've gaped for a while, because what? "Wait, how did you even get up here?" You're on the fourth floor, and it's a straight vertical drop to the street with no balconies or handholds. Is the idiot _trying_ to get himself killed?

"Jirou gave me a hand," is all Yamamoto says, holding up a pair of his short-sword hilts, and you scowl at him as you try to recover your mental footing.

"Whatever, you can leave by the fucking stairs. What do you want?"

"Ah, I heard the music." Yamamoto scratches his head with his free hand, grinning apologetically. He's wearing his usual shapeless ugly sweats that make you think he must have come from practice or something, and his shoulders almost fill your narrow window frame. "I wanted to see if it was really you."

"So what if it is?" you snap, uncomfortable and defensive, and turn away pointedly to close the lid on the keyboard, shuffling your sheet music into a haphazard pile. You're not an idiot, you can work out why your mouth gets a little drier and your pants a little tighter when he flashes that dumb smile your way, but it offends you on a deep and personal level that has nothing to do with being sixteen and at the mercy of your hormones. Shamal, the pervert, may go on about phases and healthy experimentation and adolescence, but you don't have time for this shit.

"I liked it," the baseball idiot says, because he's a baseball idiot who can't tell missed notes and skipped passages when he hears them, who always has to get his fingers into every corner of your life, invade your thoughts and your dreams like he's invading your apartment. "You should play more, Gokudera. I bet Tsuna'd like to hear it, too."

You narrow your eyes at him, want to grab him by the collar and shout until you're blue in the face, until he swears never to mention this to the Tenth. Want to grab him by the collar and yank him down to your level and shut him up for good; you banish the thought with sharp words that come easily to your tongue. "Why are you even still here, moron? Get lost already."

"Haha, okay." Really, it's infuriating how he never takes it personally. You'd rather have a good fight, the catharsis of screaming at him, splitting his lip and bloodying his nose, than that damn careless calm. The room seems a lot smaller as Yamamoto kicks of his shoes and slides through the window. "Hey, Dad had a cancellation earlier." He picks his way over to the door without objection, but halts in the entranceway, hands in his pockets as he turns back to you. "You should come over to our place and get some sushi."

"I hate sushi," you grumble, mostly for the principle of it. The hopeful way he's smiling at you twists something up in your gut, though, because you know you're going to give in.

* * *

 _xvii._  
The sky is grey and threatening overhead, and this is the third time your feet have carried you past the sushi shop in the past five minutes. It's not that you're hoping to see him, you tell yourself; you're just finishing your cigarette and deciding whether to get some damn takeout before the heavens open. It's nothing to do with the baseball idiot, and the less you see of him the better because it's already hard enough to get your head into game space when you work together. You're a grown man (or near enough) with a job to do, and no time for embarrassing teenage crushes you should've grown out of.

Funny how you can repeat that to yourself so many times the words become meaningless, and yet it never seems to make much difference.

You pause under the lamp post across from the store, taking a deep drag of smoke and scowling as the first erratic drops start to splash from the sky. Just great; now you have a choice between trudging home in this shit, no doubt getting soaked, or ducking into the shop to be annoyed by both Yamamotos and force-fed sushi. And of course, as you're swearing to yourself and grinding out the butt of your cigarette, giving serious thought to just running for it, dignity be damned, that just _has_ to be when the shutters on the upper floor rattle open and the idiot sticks his head out to peer up at the sky. You freeze, as though if you don't move you might blend into the damp grey of the wall behind you, but of course it's inevitable that he sees you.

"Ah! Gokudera!" He leans out of the window, waving, like there's any way you could _not_ notice him. "Quick, come on in! Before it really comes down, haha!"

So that's how you end up sitting at a table in the back of Takezushi while two grinning idiots ply you with sushi and bitter green tea.

"There." Yamamoto the younger folds himself down across from you, propping his chin on his hand as he grins across the table, bright and sunny and so genuine it's painful. "That's better than moping around out in the rain, right? Looks like it's going to make a night of it."

"Who's moping?" you bitch, because there's nothing else you can say. What the hell is this idiot doing in the mafia, and how the hell has it not broken him already? It's a horrible thing to realise, but you don't _want_ the idiot to change.

"Haha, okay, okay." Yamamoto beams at you, swiping a piece of ootoro from your plate. "Were you doing something for the mafia game, then? Is it a new mission?" He sounds so utterly, genuinely curious that it's hard to resist the urge to beat your head, or possibly his, against the table.

"Moron, how many times do we have to tell you it's not a game?" you complain, without heat. How you managed to fall so ridiculously for this baseball idiot who still thinks your lives are some kind of elaborate stunt, you have no idea.

"Right, right." He grins at you, and you do your best to ignore the way your gut turns upside down without your permission. The one thing you're certain of is that you're never, ever going to breathe a word of it to anyone.

* * *

 _xix._  
Yamamoto knows. The realisation hits you with all the force of the Tenth's X-Burner, and panicked nausea swims through you, curdling your stomach and weakening your knees. Ever since you landed in Italy, straggling through the airport to be whisked efficiently away by the Ninth's people, you've been catching him watching you, quiet and unreadable.

You don't realise that you're watching him, too, until the moment at dinner when he leans over to fill Haru's glass and she smiles up at him and it's not that you're fucking jealous, it really isn't, because you're pretty sure there's nothing between them and you don't care anyway. Somehow, though, you can't seem to stop your fingers tightening on your fork, and when he glances up, meeting your gaze across the table with a smile that sets his eyes on fire, that's when it hits you. He knows. And suddenly you can't breathe any more, because this could wreck everything, every barrier and protective distance and professional relationship you've fought with yourself to build.

The rest of the evening is excruciating; you keep your eyes firmly on your plate, answering in brusque monosyllables until people give up asking you questions, and escape to the music room as soon as you can, head pounding and stomach in knots. It's an uncomfortably familiar sensation, and you eye the piano warily for a long moment before sliding the bench out with one foot. When you breathe in, your shoulders straighten automatically, and though your mind is a whirl of disbelief and half-formed plans and damage limitation strategies, when you address the keyboard your fingers are sure and steady as ever.

Chords ebb into scales into a defiantly minor key, and without really thinking about it you shift into the opening arpeggios of the _Moonlight_. There's always been something quiet and yearning in it; sometimes you think you remember your mother playing it to you, remember her catching your baby fingers in hers when you'd tried to follow along. It's easy to get caught up in the music, so that you lose track of time, so that your breath stills in your throat as the last chord dies away and you look up to see him there, leaning against the opposite wall.

"What the hell do you want?" you growl, aiming directly for pissed off in an attempt to ignore the stubborn tendril of wanting that uncurls beneath your ribs. You've got so good at cutting these feelings down and stamping them out, but he always has to upset your carefully ordered life. You don't know why you're even fucking surprised.

"Ah, sorry to interrupt." Yamamoto smiles at you, the usual dumb happy smile but with something thoughtful and patient lurking behind his eyes that makes you want to scream, makes you want to shiver. "I was just listening."

That much, you think, is fucking obvious. "Well, don't." You turn resolutely back to the keyboard, picking out half-hearted chords, the first couple of bars of _Gardens in the Rain_ , before you realise what you're doing and force your hands still.

"What's that?" he asks, curious and boyishly enthusiastic; you scowl down at your hands.

"Nothing. What do you want, baseball freak?"

"Haha, do I have to want something? Apart from talking to you," he adds, so low that your stomach tightens and your hands tremble with the intimacy of it. You ball them into fists, suddenly aware of the dimness of the room, the two of you likely the only ones in this wing of the house right now.

"Yes," you snap, kicking the piano bench back and whirling to head for the door. He stops you with a hand on your arm before you've taken four steps.

"Gokudera..." It's that same low voice, private and dark with wanting, and you know he has to feel the way you can't help but shudder. He's so close behind you that you swear you can feel the heat of him all down your back, though you aren't touching at all but for that single point of contact. It's an effort to shrug him off, and your voice comes out rough.

"No. Leave it," you order, and this time he doesn't try to stop you as you leave.

An hour later, the encounter is still vivid in your head as you pace the length of your suite and back again, unable to keep from replaying events over and over. You're about ready to kill him for putting you into this state, your every nerve still keyed up from something so stupid and simple as his fingers curled around your bicep. With every step you're finding it more difficult to convince yourself that this is a bad idea, that it would never work out, that you don't want him badly enough that you're aching with it. There are reports to check and financial records to prepare for the Tenth, but your mind is scattered and you can't dredge up the focus to contemplate anything but the low soft tone of the idiot's voice and the hot light in his eyes.

This is pathetic; you growl to yourself and slump down on the arm of a chair, staring at the wall that divides your two suites. That's someone's idea of a sick joke, too, but the Tenth had looked so earnest when he'd suggested it ("You get on best with Yamamoto don't you, Gokudera-kun?") that you hadn't the heart to make a scene. Your _life_ is a sick fucking joke, right now, because you're as close to giving in to – to this _thing_ as makes no difference.

The evening air is balmy as you step out onto the shared balcony, eyes firmly on the horizon and the distant city lights of Palermo. It's a relief to find yourself alone, and his window is resolutely closed; you eye it for a long moment, before starting slowly down the balcony.

You've barely made it a few steps when your resolve wavers, the doubts rising up again; you halt, staring straight ahead at nothing as the seconds tick past in your head, and then turn decisively to head back to your room. This is crazy.

This is fucking cowardice. You stop again, clenching your fists against the memory of a future that isn't yours. Setting your jaw, you turn, stalking determinedly toward Yamamoto's window and trying to ignore the way you're trembling. You're being so damn stupid, but you've had enough of holding back and letting your fear stop you. You know better than that, you have to.

You stare at the impenetrable glass of the window for a long moment, avoiding meeting your own eyes as you try to make your hands move to knock. You look so fucking dumb standing here like some girl getting ready to confess; Yamamoto is going to laugh.

Your dilemma is solved when something stirs on the other side of the window and Yamamoto himself bleeds into view, subsuming your reflection. You swallow, hands clenching and unclenching as your eyes meet through the glass, his at first dark and unreadable but softening into a faint smile as you stand there looking at each other. After so long that you're beginning to think you're fucking imagining it after all, he slides the window open, leaning against the frame.

"Gokudera?" He sounds so damn careful; you grit your teeth, swallowing frustration and wanting.

"This is the worst idea ever," you say baldly, and hunch your shoulders uncomfortably as he just blinks at you for a long moment. "You're an idiot, and I – I'm no good at this shit." It's as close as you can get, and you want to say more, want to explain exactly why the two of you will never, ever work out, but Yamamoto smiles at you then, slow and blinding and utterly dumbly adorable, and all your carefully prepared arguments just crumple in the face of that.

"I don't care," the idiot says, reaching out to curl his fingers around your arm again, and this time you let him draw you in.


End file.
